Castro's niece speaks in Bay Area [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Last edited Thu May 24, 2012, 03:24 AM - Edit history (3)

Castro's niece speaks in Bay Area
By LISA LEFF
Associated Press
Posted: 05/23/2012 09:25:32 PM PDT
May 24, 2012 4:46 AM GMTUpdated: 05/23/2012 09:25:32 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO — The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro had some blunt words Wednesday for Cuban-Americans who support economic and travel restrictions between the U.S. and her country, saying "a Cuban Mafia" made up of immigrants "who have no scruples" are holding the American people hostage.

Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Mariela Castro made the comments about Cuban exiles who oppose her father's regime and that of her uncle, former president Fidel Castro, while speaking at San Francisco General Hospital about transgender health care in Cuba, a topic she would go on to frame as a continuation of her country's socialist ideals.

"A group of Cuban Mafia in the U.S., why are they taking away rights of American people to travel to Cuba? It's not fair," Castro, 49, told about 50 medical professionals and transgender advocates. "You are millions of people against a tiny Mafia of people who have no scruples. ... We are fighting for the rights of Cubans and the rights of Americans."

Castro, the director of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education, or CENESEX, was in San Francisco for a multiday visit devoted largely to meeting with gay and transgender rights activists and an academic conference where she is scheduled to chair a panel on sexual diversity. She was one of at least 60 Cuban scholars who were granted U.S. visas to attend Thursday's meeting of the Latin American Studies Association.

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(This photo from Getty Images was used with this same article by CBS.)